2019 Women’s Rubber Tramp Rendezvous

WRTR: January 4-8, 2019

WRTR Location: Bouse, AZ (33.827526, -114.054367)

The Women’s Rubber Tramp Rendezvous is less than a month away! Your organizers and advisory committee are working diligently to make this a great, meaningful event for all. We are in a beautiful location, awesome views. I expect a repeat of last year’s camaraderie — lots of laughter, lots of learning, lots of memories.

Goals:

1) To help participants be successful in the vandwelling lifestyle long term, and

2) To build a supportive community of women.

2019 Women’s Rubber Tramp Rendezvous
Outline of Schedule

The schedule below gives you an idea of the basic structure.

You may arrive as early as December 26 and be within BLM’s 14-day rule if you stay at the WRTR location until January 8. As we get close to the event, areas will be identified for meetings, camping and parking; so, if you come early, you may need to move your camp once the event begins.

Specific topic information will be provided about the Mini-Talks in the days to come. Also, sign up to lead a Discussion or Mentoring Session on January 4th.

Note: “Networking with Food” is NOT a conventional potluck. Women do not bring big dishes of food to share. Rather, just bring and share what you would have fixed yourself for that meal. It ends up being more like snacks. The focus is on networking, meeting other supportive women. We had a great time last January.

We have a lot of sessions and activities going on at the same times throughout the event. So, come prepared to make choices. And, yes, it’s OK if you don’t want to do any of the stuff on the schedule. Pick and choose what works for you.

For more detailed information about the session topics and locations, click here.

Map with “Street” Names:

Map with GPS Coordinates of Neighborhood Camps.

If you are a woman new to the vandwelling lifestyle, you are strongly encouraged to attend both the WRTR and the RTR (Jan 9-20 in Quartzsite, AZ). These are not duplicative events. That is, there’s information taught at the RTR that is foundational to your success in the vandwelling lifestyle. The WRTR is being held before the regular RTR so that you can form a support group of other women with whom to group together to form your own small neighborhood among the crowds at the main RTR.

I’m getting excited for January in Arizona!

At dawn’s first light, only the chairs remain from the evening campfire, RTR 2016.

Introduction

Hello! I’m Suanne, the facilitator of the Women’s RTR (WRTR). We had a great first WRTR in January. See some of the details of what was covered at the end of this article.

Background

After hearing feedback at the Women’s Meetings during previous RTRs, and after reading several requests in the forum for a women’s get together, we began offering a Women’s RTR in January 2018.

Who May Attend?

If you are experienced in the vandwelling lifestyle, we want you there. If you are a newbie, we want you there. Like the regular RTR, this will be a time to learn, share your experiences, and build community. If you are a woman, you are welcome regardless of your vehicle or full-/part-time status.

All types of vehicles fit into the vandwelling lifestyle, RTR 2017.(by Suanne Carlson)

Program

We will have lots of opportunities to get to know and learn from each other informally – morning coffee/tea, evening potlucks, and campfires.

We will have two panel discussions with women role-models from within the vandwelling community. Note: This is in addition to the Women’s Meetings during the regular RTR.

The two topics of interest that we will definitely address are: 1) Safety, and 2) Personal hygiene (bathroom/shower). We will cover those issues in-depth. Neither concern has a one-size-fits-all solution; so, we will have multiple women on those panels present a wide range of perspectives for you to consider for the solution that you consider your best fit.

As women express what they want to learn and have to teach, we will offer concurrent mentoring sessions throughout the event. In these mentoring sessions we explore topics in smaller groups and more indepth. Some examples include: cheap meal planning for one, safe food storage with little or no refrigeration, using basic power tools, map reading.

We will also provide an opportunity for experienced vandwellers to camp together with those new to the lifestyle to coach and mentor after the WRTR and RTR.

Sunset at the 2017 RTR

Rules

The rules for the main RTR hold true throughout the Women’s RTR as well (see Bob’s YouTube video or website). Additionally, to create a safe space where women may express themselves freely, please no video/audio taping or photos during the Women’s RTR.

Wrap-Up with Some Numbers from the 2018 Women’s RTR

At the first day’s Orientation, Lisa counted 196 participants. I had several more women approach me later saying they missed the Orientation. So, we had 200+ participants over the 3-day event. This is totally amazing because we promoted the WRTR only twice — me on the forum, and Bob on a video.

About 20 pre-event volunteers graciously signed-up to present and manage various functions during the WRTR. As you’ll see going down this list, most everyone at the WRTR eventually played important roles in mentoring, coaching, encouraging, breaking camp, cleaning up, etc.

5 Mini-Talks were offered during the first afternoon by experienced vandwellers. Each 20-minute Mini-Talks was repeated 3 times so that attendees could go to more than one (1). After the Mini-Talks, we had some dancing.

35 Small-Group Mentoring Slots were filled during the second and last days of the WRTR (2).

2 Panels were offered on the second day, Personal Hygiene in the morning, and Safety in the afternoon. Three to four women on each of the panels presented their strategies and experiences, then participants asked questions and offered their perspectives.

4 morning and evening networking opportunities with food and drink to share.

4 campfires were enjoyed, morning and evening. The last evening campfire included roasted marshmallows and a sing-a-long with instruments.

4 Sheets of Needs were collected and will be available for view on a password-protected page.

2 Sheets of Offerings were collected and will be available for view on a password-protected page.

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